"Miss Summers? Do you know where you are?"

A padded cell, she thought. What did the nice man in the white coat want to hear? "...Sunnydale?"

Frown. Wrong answer.

"There is no Sunnydale, Miss Summers. This is a mental hospital. You've been here for six years."

****

A long or short time later, a stout redheaded woman in a white suit came in with a tray. "Time for your meds, dearie," she said, holding out a little white paper cup.

"...Mrs. Koger?" Buffy said, throat raw. "Where's Dawn? What've you done with her?"

"Don't know any Dawn, dearie. Now open up like a good girl..." The woman thrust the edge of the cup into her mouth and tipped it up, spilling the pills down her gullet. "Now the water, okay, dear?" She gave Buffy a sip from a larger version of a child's sippy cup.

"I know you want to take her away from me..." Buffy rasped to the woman's retreating back. "I promise I'll try harder, I'll be good...please don't take Dawn away..."

The metal door shut with a clang.

****

The next thing she knew, someone was shaking her awake. Thinking she was under attack, she tried to strike out, but her hands were bound up in the straitjacket.

The attendant, a big black man, retreated to a neutral corner. "Sorry, Miss. Forgot you don't like to be woke up sudden like that," he said gently. "Doctor wants to see you in his office."

"Is this about my destroying the eggs?" Buffy looked around a little wildly for escape.

"And Dorothy's off once again to Oz..." he sighed, standing her up.

****

Buffy and the doctor fenced around their respective versions of reality several times after that. She was distressed to find herself spending more and more time in his version. It all seemed so plausible...a new version of reality her mind had created to make herself feel all-powerful in the face of her parents' marital troubles...a new "family" that would never leave her.

Am I no better than Drusilla, then? she wondered. Think. If this is reality, is there anything in Sunnydale that's really all that much better than a normal life with my family intact?

And unbidden, Spike's face rose up in her mind's eye, wearing the vulnerable, stunned look he'd had when she told him it was over.

But that never happened, she told herself sternly. Put it out of your mind right now.

****

She began adapting to the rhythm of life on the ward. Even from inside her cell, she could tell when it was day and when it was night. She'd picked up the circadian rhythms of the staff, who still got to see the sunlight.

So she knew it was late, after all the rounds had been made and the ward had mostly folded up for the night, when the cell door opened quietly, admitted a stealthy figure and shut gently behind him.

The slim silhouette moved to the corner opposite her and squatted on its haunches, while her eyes readjusted to the dark. "There's a note in your file," the man said. "Says you're gettin' better. Says they're thinkin' about sendin' you home. That true?"

"...Spike?" He was wearing orderly's whites, and speaking in a flat midwestern drawl instead of his usual Cockney. She tried to scramble to her feet. "This is a plan, isn't it? To get me out of here, take me back home to Dawn? You are taking care of Dawn, right?"

" 'Cause I don't want you to go home," the blond continued as if she hadn't spoken, shaking his head sadly. He duck-walked the few feet across the padded floor to her and gently nudged her back down.

Confused, Buffy's eyes went wide and her jaw went slack as he drew nearer. She tensed for a fight, but read vulnerability and gentleness in the familiar blue eyes looming over hers, and when Spike-but-not-Spike's mouth closed over hers, she allowed the kiss.

****

Oh God can he ever kiss! was her next coherent thought, once he let her come up for air.

When his tongue slipped out of her mouth, she tried to follow with her own, to coax it back to dance with her own again, and a low whimper escaped her when he began nipping and nibbling at her lower lip.

Not Spike. Not real. Not right, she thought, and tried to pull her head back sharply. "No - this is -" She yelped in sudden pain when his teeth closed hard over her lower lip, breaking the skin and pinning her head in place.

He released her as suddenly as he bit her, grinning cockily. "Wrong, yeah, I know, you slayer, me vampire. We been through this song, I think I've got the sheet music."

Cool hands slid up under her tank top, under the straitjacket, finding skin. "Y'know, I betcha even if your head don't remember me, the rest of you will, baby..." He moaned a little, feeling her nipples pucker under his fingers. "...oh yeah..."

His head bent to lick and suck at the thin stain of blood on her lower lip, and she drew back, a disgusted sound slipping out of the back of her throat. "What? You're into vampires, right? Just tryin' to oblige..."

His mouth closed over hers and his tongue resumed all the clever things it had been doing to hers before. He eased her body back with the gentle pressure of the kiss, hands still working at her breasts, and he rocked the bulge in his pants against her groin in time with the movements of his hands and tongue.

Unconsciously she began rubbing up against him, feeling the hard knot through the thin cotton of her pajama bottoms. A small sound of pleasure escaped her, and her breathing sped up into harsh little pants. "...undo...my hands..." she moaned softly. "...please..."

"Sorry, baby, can't do that," he said on a groan, his own breath coming faster. "Your own fault, you shouldn't'a attacked me that time..." He gasped sharply when she ground her hips hard against his. "...Damn, I wish I could trust you..."

He slipped his hands out from under her restraints and began tugging at the elastic waist of her pajamas. "...but there's...other things...I can do...for you..." he panted. To her amazement, he got her lower body stripped seemingly without ever releasing the pressure of his erection at the base of her thighs.

His head slid down past the cross of her forearms and he nudged up the hems of tank top and straitjacket, nuzzling at her warm belly. His tongue dipped deep into her navel, swirling around, and her hips and legs began to tremble. She felt the heat of his mouth trace a lazy path along the lowermost curve of her belly, dropping lower to lick at her thatch of curls before returning to their original course.

The trembling had grown into a jerking motion in her hips, and when his teeth scraped a line down the sharp edges of her hipbones it grew more spastic. His palms were pulling not quite gently at her flanks and thighs, easing her into a more comfortable position.

Finally he moved between her legs, and his tongue started making all the same clever moves against her clit. She gasped and bucked up against him, and she heard/felt a low hum of pleasure coming from him. Oh God...that's better than any vibrator...

One hand snaked under her, and two fingers slid inside, massaging her inner walls in time with his sucking mouth, while his thumb probed gently at the tight orifice beneath. She thrashed helplessly against him, gasps rising in pitch along with her searing body temperature.

He kept his tempo rising in time with her responses, and it was only a few more seconds before she hit the first peak, crested the wave screaming in pleasure and crashed into the second, larger swell of sensation. Her whole body went limp as he drew back from her core, and residual sparks pricked at her limbs while she watched him strip off his overshirt and pants. Nice and tight, she thought idly. Always did like that body, even when we were enemies...no, wait -

Before she could work out the two contradictory realities in her head, he was back on her, pressing the whole length of his body into hers while his mouth played at her neck and ear. The warm weight of him felt heavenly, and she moaned softly. "...the noise...I was screaming..."

"Cell's soundproofed, baby...people scream here all the time..." His breath tickled the shell of her ear, puffing up the tendrils of hair tucked loosely behind it. "...just let go, make all the noise you want..." His hands were coaxing her hips into position against his, rotating them in a slow, easy rhythm, almost like dancing.

"My God you're good with that mouth," she moaned, feeling him suckle gently at her throbbing carotid artery. She felt his lips curve into a smile against her skin, and heard him chuckle.

"Kind of a specialty..." He blew cool air over the hot spot he'd just been sucking and she moaned again, letting her hips fall into rhythm with him. "...I'd give a lot t'be able to get under all this stuff, though..." he whispered, pressing his chest hard into her bound-up front. "...maybe someday..."

She felt a cold stab of fear when he slipped the head of his cock inside her. But then her eyes found his blue ones glowing above hers, and saw warmth and tenderness and the same thin edge of fear in them. So she nudged with her nose and chin until he brought his mouth up to hers and kissed him, relishing the familiar taste and scent and heat of love and sex and Spike as he slid all the way home inside her.

Arching up into the tight press of his arms and meeting his thrusts, Buffy realized this was the safest she'd felt since first becoming aware of the hospital-reality.

****

Afterwards she wept quietly while he dressed them both. Awkwardly he pulled her to a sitting position and rocked her against his shoulder like a baby. Sniffling, she tried to catch her breath to speak, but he shushed her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know...degrading, humiliating, so ashamed of yourself...know all the verses to that one too, baby..." he murmured. "Y'know, you'd be a lot better off if you'd just learn to enjoy what you enjoy..."

"Betcha say that to all the patients you screw," she snapped, and felt him stiffen.

"Hey! You were the one that jumped me that first time, remem- no, guess you don't remember." The sparks went out of his eyes, and his face somehow looked more boyish at the memory. "There aren't any others, love. Just you. Coulda knocked me over with a feather I was so shocked...but, it was like, we were, y'know - and, it was like, I looked at you and I saw you. Like, all of you..."

He smiled wanly, brushed her hair back out of her eyes. "Listen, just - just forget what I said before, okay? About not wantin' you to go. Just, just do what you gotta do. Get better. Get normal. Go live your life, an' - just, forget you ever saw the inside'a this place, okay?"

His lips and cheek brushed lightly at the tears, and he rubbed his nose along the side of hers, surprising a giggle from her. He planted a soft kiss on her bowed forehead as he rose. "It'll be okay, baby," he promised, stretching up an arm in another corner. "You'll see."

Curious, Buffy craned her neck around from one side to the other, straining to keep the sliver of light when he opened the door to leave. It glinted off something metallic near the ceiling.

Camera, she thought angrily. Shit, they've been watching me this whole time, except when Spike - I gotta get out of here. One way or another.